NAture’s Imprints

Nature’s Imprints is inspired by the palpable and profound ways the natural world impacts our lives and informs our sense of being. The artists Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee, Christopher Blay, Krista Leigh Steinke, and Venessa Monokian reflect on this relationship as deeply intertwined, drawing connections between nature’s ephemerality and the human experience of time and memory.

Installed April 2024

Images: Nicki Evans Photo

Featured Artists

Christopher Blay’s Don’t let the sun go down on me, or Sunset Sundown series (Aft­er Ruscha) explores how rooted in history our understanding of the American landscape is. ­The six cyanotypes show time-stamped moments documenting a 36-hour road trip from Houston to Washington, D.C. that Christopher took in 2021. ­The high-contrast reversal of dark and light from the cyanotypes focuses on the ordinary images one may see out of a car window on the road. Among the most striking images is a large white cross hovering over a highway barrier with the American flag dwarfed in the background.

Traveling south to north and making limited stops, Christopher was reminded of Sundown towns, prevalent across the U.S. in the height of the Jim Crow era, where Black people would experience violence if found at night. Th­rough the work’s title, reference is also made to Ed Ruscha’s seminal photographic series Every Building on the Sunset Strip from 1966. Christopher’s modern-day response to Ruscha’s work from the lens of a Black man performs what a photographer of color may not have safely embarked on in the 1960s and begs the question of his welfare even today. Th­e relationship with this landscape is charged, but there is a way to see Christopher’s project as honoring that history and a reclamation of that journey.

Christopher, born in Liberia and from Fort Worth, lives and works in Houston.

Featured Works

Don’t let the sun go down on me, or Sunset Sundown series (After Ruscha) #3, April 6, 5:46PM, Lee Highway, Troutville, VA and April 6, 6:38 PM, Bristol, VA.; Don’t let the sun go down on me, or Sunset Sundown series (After Ruscha) #4, April 5, 7:37AM, McCalla, AL.; Don’t let the sun go down on me, or Sunset Sundown series (After Ruscha) #2, April 7, 11:20AM, looking North towards Chattanooga, TN, and April 5, 6:22PM, Walnut Hill, Bristol, TN.

In her paper collages, Tiffany Heng-Hui Lee represents aerial fragments of the landscape. Guided by principles of order, balance, and harmony, she layers blocks of color embellished with hand-drawn detail and segmented by impossibly thin hand-cut lines.

In the series featured, Tiffany calls attention to rapidly disappearing salt lakes and fields worldwide by highlighting the wonder of these sites’ unique geological beauty. Her intention is to urge us to treasure and preserve these sites, which are declining due to industry and extraction.

She captures the immense vibrancy of the salt lakes’ colors. ­The water shifts from blue to pink depending on salinity levels and reflections of the sun. Tiffany draws connections between salt crystalizing and memories forming, both symbols of preservation that ultimately fade and dissolve, bearing witness to the passage of time.

Tiffany, originally from Taiwan, lives and works in Houston.

Featured Works

Salt Field in Australia III; Silence of the Salt Field I; Silence of the Salt Field II; Salt Field in San Francisco II; Salt Field in Salt Lake IV; Salt Field in Salt Lake I

As the Glow Grows is a series of hand-cut photographs examining the fragility of our ecosystems and how changes in familiar landscapes can alter a feeling of home. ­This series by Venessa Monokian is inspired by an experience the artist had outdoors in her hometown of Miami. She noticed a new species of plant life that had taken over the wooded landscape, its heart-shaped leaves in a “loving embrace” as if “choking everything in its path,” in the artist’s words. She later learned this plant is the air potato vine, an invasive species that can grow up to eight inches a day, common in Houston.

­The works on the wall are her photographs taken in both Miami and Houston of the air potato vine overtaking another plant. After printing, Venessa cuts away most of the image, isolating the vine and its victim. She paints the back of the vine bright pink, an unnatural color that the artist feels indicates a sort of artifcial toxicity and mirrors the allure of invasive species, often cultivated for their beauty.

What unnerved the artist on her walk, the sense of newness that disrupted her familiarity of the landscape, shows us how greatly and quickly our actions impact the environment. In the spring, as we see cycles of growth and rebirth around us, the artist asks us to cherish the natural world and understand our imprint on it.

Venessa, originally from Miami, lives and works in Houston.

Featured Works

In Knots #5; In Knots #3; In Knots #1; In Knots #11; As the Glow Grows #5; As the Glow Grows #9

Krista Leigh Steinke’s 16-minute-long video animation Sun Notations invites us into an ethereal abstract world evocative of grand celestial bodies and microscopic organisms. In reality, what we are seeing is an animation of over 50 pinhole-camera solargraphs that capture the pathway of the sun from the artist’s backyard, with some pinhole cameras left out for an hour and some forgotten and found after two years.

Krista’s work often takes this “diaristic” form, with time embedded in the process of making the work. In this case, unleashing some artistic control, the sun becomes a creative partner in its making. ­This focus on materials and process also highlights photography’s role in preserving moments in time. ­The sun’s physical mark on the paper resonates as the burning of a memory into consciousness at the moment of experience, and as we watch the movements of the sun in Krista’s animations, we may see ourselves in ways that intertwine with the universe.

Krista is originally from Houston, where she currently lives and works. ­The music for the video was created by the artist’s brother, Matthew Steinke, an artist and musician from Austin, Texas.

Featured Work

Sun Notations Video